Untold Stories
by Pestilencea-The-Warlock
Summary: "Isvia wanders the shattered remnants of what has become her life and tries to remember what came before. She comes up with nothing but intangible whisps of moments gone by, faded sepia like an old photograph." - Chapter 9: Anatomy of a Loss. This one makes little sense.
1. Prologue: Things we wish we'd said

_**A/N: Hello, this is Pestilencea-The-Warlock. This is meant to be a series of drabbles, following the lives of different people. Those who might be heroes, those who might be villians. The first few chapters are random stories that I had floating about on my computer, however I am full of new ideas for this project and I'm eager to write them down.**_

_**The chapters will be independent and unconnected (unless I say otherwise, which might happen) but you may or may not notice recurring characters, symbols or themes.**_

_**For now, read, review and enjoy :)**_

**Disclaimer: I don't own World of Warcraft, obviously, otherwise I would've made them re-design the dragon models.**

**Things we wish we'd said**

Staring down at the mass-grave, Sabbine feels nothing but a yawning, infinite emptiness inside. She doesn't feel the pouring rain and she doesn't feel the comforting hands of her comrades on her shoulders. She doesn't hear the quiet words that are meant to console her and she doesn't see the concern in her friend's eyes. All she hears is the static in her ears and all she sees is Nadira's bloodied and bruised face, smiling up at her and telling her that everything will be alright.

They try to get her to move, try to lead her back inside, away from this monument to the dead, out of the pouring rain. But she doesn't move from her spot and her eyes don't stray from the white marble slab under which her lover lies buried, along with all those others who fell in the battle for Wyrmrest Temple and in the fight against Deathwing - or at least what was left of them.

One by one they leave her side, until only one person remains kneeling, her gloved hand resting on the smooth stone inscribed with the names of the Fallen.

Sabbine doesn't notice her and even if she did, she wouldn't mind ther other's presence. This other person isn't there to try and pretend that things will be alright. She is here to grieve as well, to mourn a life lost forever. A person, or maybe several that will never return. Family, Friends, Lovers. They don't know each other and they never will, they are perhaps worlds apart, but out here in the rain they are the same, two souls who have lost their purpose.

Sabbine will remeber Nadira's smiling face for years to come. She will hear her words in her sleep, so warm and full of love as she lays dieing. 'Don't worry Sabs. Everything will be alright. Don't worry, It'll be okay.'

And she will wish she had said it, what her heart had known all along, said it before her chance had been taken away.

As her mind slowly returns from that empty place where her heart used to be, she kneels down beside the mourning stranger and places her hand on the stone as well. The rain is still pouring, the icy tears of heaven are still falling, as she whispers:

„I never got to tell her I loved her."

And the draenei beside her nods, her face blank and yet betraying her agony at the same time. It is there in the creased corners of her eyes and the downwards twitch of her lips. It is the expression of someone incapable of tears, who is crying all the same. The rain has plastered her white hair to dark skin and runs in rivultes down her black armor. The gloved hand caresses a single name on the stone slab, thin fingers gently tracing every single letter etched into the surface. 'Amara'

_„Yeah, neither did I"_


	2. Siblings

**_A/N: Hello, this is Pestilencea-The-Warlock. This is meant to be a series of drabbles, following the lives of different people. Those who might be heroes, those who might be villians. The first few chapters are random stories that I had floating about on my computer, however I am full of new ideas for this project and I'm eager to write them down._**

**For now, read, review and enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own World of Warcraft, obviously, otherwise I would've made them re-design the dragon models.**

**Siblings**

Ever since they had been children, she had protected him.

Back then, in the small, nameless village in the hills of Nagrand she would stand up to any older kid that tried to pick on her shy little brother and more often than not, they'd run away with a black eye or a split lip. Back then, still a child and bounding with energy, her temper had often gotten them in trouble. Actually more often than not. But no matter how hard the punishment for hitting the neighbors child would be (his fault for being a meanie), her brother could not be persuaded not to share it, even if it meant sitting in their room with his sister for the rest of the day. In those days - blissfully unaware of vague concepts like the passage of time or the future ahead of them - they had been inseparable, as if they were joined at the hip. So where one went, the other one followed not far behind.

Later, when she finished her training in the magic arts and he was still in the middle of becoming a vindicator, they had sparred with other recruits side by side, her quickly growing knowledge and grasp of the arcane arts complimenting beautifully with his strength and fierce determination.

She taught him how to clear his mind with meditation and calm his emotions (it was the way she kept herself from lighting something on fire every time she was upset), even a few little magic tricks and he trained her in swordsplay in such an unforgiving, relentless way that she was constantly afraid he would turn into their iron-willed, fearsome mother in the next moment. Of course she held no dislike for the woman that had taught her how to catch the small, glowing lizards of the world she had been born on - the world before Draenor - but growing up under the strict rule of a high ranking vindicator left some imprints.

It seemed that, under his friendly and mostly gentle attitude was a core of steel so hard, nothing that the world could throw at him would ever break it.

When the orcs attacked, they had both been lucky. They had said farewell to their family and left for Karabor, the most magnificent of all draenei cities, to learn and find their place in life, and so they were spared when their home, a quiet and peacefull sanctuary in the beautyfull hills of Nagrand, was razed to the ground, the people they had grown up with, their neighbors and friends, slaughtered.

In the months to follow, the bond between them became stronger than it had ever been. It became a chain of iron, that bound them together, kept them from loosing themselves in the desperation as the world erupted into war.

Together they survived, together they fought - back to back – so that they might see another day. Together they weathered the storm, blocked out the pain, ignored their sadness, up until the day it caught up with them. And, in a silent moment, they held one another in the shadow of a destroyed building and - for the first time in months – wept openly. Wept for the things they had lost, wept out of fear that the other might die and that they might find themselves alone in this madness.

And after their tears had dried, she had stood up, clutched the sword she had taken from a fallen defender and steeled herself. She had to be strong. She was the eldest member of their family, now that they didn't know what had become of their sister Luuri or their parents. She had to protect her baby brother who was not much of a baby anymore, but a warrior instead. She recalled the picture of their mother, clad in golden armour, swinging a giant, crystalline mace, the very epitome of righteousness and resolve, standing like a wall between her children and any possible danger, held that image at the forefront of her mind.

She would fill that role now.

In that night, the sky flashing with lightning, the first night of rest in weeks, she swore an oath to herself. She would protect her brother with every ounce of strength she posessed. She would walk through hellfire to keep him safe. She would defend him until her last breath and should she die, she swore herself that her spirit would not know rest until he was safe. She carved this oath into her own flesh with her magic, burnt the promise onto her skin, a intricate pattern of runes, from her hands to her chest, that forever sealed her purpose. She was not a magician or a sister anymore. She was a protector.

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><p>The life before her dark rebirth was fuzzy and blurred, but the promise, the oath, was still written on her skin and when the necromancers had mended her body and forced the soul back in the wrong way, they had not thought of removing it. So whenever she looked at her branded arms, she felt this nagging at the back of her mind, this thought that they were very important.<p>

When the ambushed an outpost of the Argent Dawn, she had almost been able to resist. Fight the order that sent her body to move through the throng of fighters, to him, to the only thing still binding her, the part of her past that still survived. The thin thread of feeling that her former self held on to. Her anchor. She would have ended her own cursed existence in that moment, just to avoid seeing that utterly broken look on his face when the dead body of his sister came at him, wielding a blood-coated sword, or see the betrayed, pained grimace as she drove it all the way through his chest. Or the tears in his eyes as she was able to break free of her masters hold for just long enough to beg him for forgiveness.

They had found each other later, after they broke free for good, even before the Highlord uttered the vow to fight the Lich King. He had stood there, his sword abandoned on the ground and his face looking just as lost as she felt. And she had run into his arms and he nearly crushed her against his chest, because in that moment, they were reunited after this long darkness that had overshadowed their minds. In this moment she almost felt complete again, could almost pretend her heart was beating again. She had her brother back.

And now... now she would protect him once more.


	3. Darkness of the Priest

_**A/N: Hello, this is Pestilencea-The-Warlock. This is meant to be a series of drabbles, following the lives of different people. Those who might be heroes, those who might be villians. The first few chapters are random stories that I had floating about on my computer, however I am full of new ideas for this project and I'm eager to write them down.**_

**For now, read, review and enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own World of Warcraft, obviously, otherwise I would've made them re-design the dragon models.**

**Darkness of the Priest**

Her restlessness reminded Zylene of the sea at storm, of the brutal waves breaking themselves against Teldrassils roots, crashing down violently, battering against the giant tree. Like the ocean she was driven, driven by her ghosts and her dwindling faith, driven by the darkness. She paced back and forth, looking at her with those shadowed eyes, the circles under them deep and dark, the beast wihtin her grinning at the warrior from behind a thin shield of restraint. And her own beast responded, the rage inside her, the greatest of her unforgivable sins, seeping into her thoughts, into her body, longing for that other beast that was so similar yet so different.

The feeling aroused her. The thought that the priest was crooked, twisted like she was, that both of them had the same, dark urges. The deep, heartfelt desire to destroy and bring caos to this world that they despised. But their ways parted as the priest decided that fullfilling these urges would be a great idea.

For a while the warrior had considered following her when Nerea left Shattrath, flayed corpses left in her wake, the darkness screaming at her to give in and walk the same path as her somewhat lover, follow her into the shadow, give into the unquenchable thirst the draenei had awoken inside her. Follow their mate, their sole purpose, the object of her unending lust.

But she didn't.

Zylene watched as Nerea wandered the world, aimlessly driven, the beast urging her to press on, to continue, without direction or sense, murdering those that tried to hold her back, leaving their bodies ground to dust, charred, sometimes without an outside wound, bleeding from mouth, eyes and ears. Her mind was in disarray, unfocussed and she muttered to herself, prayers, songs long forgotten, words from books that no sane person should read, curses in a demonic language that even Zylene felt no desire to utter. A language reserved solely for the evil.

For years the warrior watched as she dragged herself across Outland, sometimes going in circles, sometimes changing directions entirely but eventually reaching the place Zylene hoped she would avoid. But Nerea went right into Auchidon, the deathpriests welcoming her like a lost friend, as they saw the lurking darkness within her. She'd killed twenty before they gently took her by the hand and led her deeper into the maze of hallways and burial-chambers.

She had given up on the priest then and returned to her shabby appartement in Shattrath, where they had spent so many nights together, and suffered in silence, the rage that had kept her occupied - diving into new battles - suddently gone and her mind blank. She did not feel the carefully stocked wrath anymore, nor the need to go and get herself in danger. Her beast had left with Nerea and the inner quiet that she had longed for all her life, the quiet she could never archieve, suddently was there, right now when she didn't need it.

But of course the time came when the guild called upon her once more and she set out.

To Auchidon.


	4. Dark Guardian

**A/N: Hello, this is Pestilencea-The-Warlock. This is meant to be a series of drabbles, following the lives of different people. Those who might be heroes, those who might be villians. The first few chapters are random stories that I had floating about on my computer, however I am full of new ideas for this project and I'm eager to write them down.**

**For now, read, review and enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own World of Warcraft, obviously, otherwise I would've made them re-design the dragon models.**

**Dark Guardian**

From afar she watched her tear though the battlefield, a flash of holy armour and golden light, spinning, striking, killing. Her shield raised and her mace swinging as she screamed out those prayers like battlecries, bathing her foes in holy fire, her zealous rage alone enough to bring them to their knees.

She wanted to be there. Stand next to that glowing angel, her beacon, her Light. Fight next to her. Protect her. Keep her safe forever. Be her shield and her sword.

Her fingers closed around her swords' hilt, her knuckels white under her black gauntlet. So stong was the urge to run to her side, move infront of her, shield her from harm, mow down whatever stood in her path, so she would know her Light would be safe, that she wouldn't expire and leave her in the dark.

She was so beautifull, so gracefull, so divine, her pale skin splattered with blood, dripping off her armour, of her weapon, staining her silvery hair in a way that made her undead heart ache in desire, in the need to be close to her, to feel her reassuring presence, loose herself in her light. And she glowed. Oh how bright she glowed. So bright it drew her in like a moth to the flame, yet kept her away.

She wanted it so badly, that glow, wanted to feel her warm radiance, wanted to see that beaming smile she always carried, directed at her, wanted to have her all to herself and only herself. She wanted to keep that Beacon - that had led her through the Darkness all this time - close, she wanted to be by her side, live for her, fight for her. Die for her.

The urge – the _need_ - was so strong, so overwhelming it made her soul split apart.

But pawns weren't meant to be with the queen and she couldn't be close to her without her angels' faith consuming her, burning her soul, searing her from within.

_The dead shalt be shunned by the light and walk in darkness eternal_

So she was damned to watch her from afar, watch as she fought battles that others deemed lost, watch as she healed and killed, cried and laughed, watch as she endangered her life to protect the innocent, time and time again.

She was damned to crave her until all eternity, crave that being she wanted more that everything else in the world but yet could not have.

Was damned to never fel her touch, her gentle caress, else she get burned.

But she would follow her. Would protect her from the shadows. Would keep watch when she slept at night. Look out for the dangers that lurked in the dark, in the dark she was a part off.

She would protect her Light.

She would be her Dark Guardian.

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><p>From afar she watched the dark knight dance around her enemies, a slinking shadow of death, always moving, never resting, never tiring, never sleeping. Her unholy sword singing in her hands, screaming for carnage, for destruction, the blood of countless staining her, the icy fire of her soul brightly burning within her eyes.<p>

She wanted to be there. Stand by that dark being, that master of death, her Darkness.

She could feel the dark gaze on her, always, unrelenting, unbreaking, unchanging. Oh how many times she had wanted to turn. Turn and lock eyes with that gruesomely marvelous being that was just outside her reach. Stride towards her and touch her coldness. Embrace her. Warm her.

She was so terrifying, so full of darkness, so unholy, so deadly in the way she danced around her foes, wielding that giant blade like it weighed nothing, shedding blood so easily, gorging herself on the suffering she wrought.

It made her heart beat faster, hammer against her ribcage like it wanted to escape her chest, so great was her desire for that being of darkness, her shadow, her Night, her death.

She wanted it so badly that darkness, wanted to feel her coldness against her fingertips. That burning corruption of the flesh and of the mind. Wanted to sink into her sinister embrace.

Wanted to keep her.

Her Dark Beacon.

That which showed her the way when the light blinded her. When she couldn't see anymore.

That wich shadowed her sight until the path was visible again, until she knew where to step again.

She wanted to have her, live for her, die for her.

The urge – the _need_ - was so strong, so overwhelming it made her soul split apart.

But the light wasn't meant to cohort with the Darkness and she couldn't be with her without her Guardian's darkness consuming her, overwhelming her, quenching her light.

_Those of the light shalt never stray from the right path or walk this world of suffering eternaly._

So she was damned to watch her from afar, watch as she tore through foes with glee, watch as she fed of the souls of the dead, watch as she followed her.

She was damned to crave her until all eternity, crave that being she wanted more that everything else in the world but yet could not have.

Was damned to never feel her touch, that icy burn, else she loose her path in the dark.

But she would be there. Would look out for those dark, sinister eyes. Would sleep soundly under her gaze. Would keep those of the light from discovering her presence, from banishing her.

She would walk the path so she could follow.

She would be the Light that casts the Shadow.


	5. The velvet Actress

_**A/N: Heya, this was – in part – inspired by the TF2 video „Meet the sniper". It's not really recongnisable anymore, but thats kind of what started this little drabble. As well as the general picture of this char that I got in my head :)**_

**Disclaimer: I don't own World of Warcraft, obviously, otherwise I would've made them re-design the dragon models.**

**Should you notice spelling mistakes, do notify me and I'll correct them :) Rate, Review and Enjoy**

**The velvet Actress**

Sabbine knows what people see when they look at her.

They see velvet dresses, draped around luscious curves.  
>They see silky pale skin shimmering in the low light and copper curls that frame an innocent and honest face.<br>They see a maiden with doe eyes, a delicate china doll to woo and lavish with their affections.

They don't see the knives and daggers hidden in the folds of expensive fabric.  
>They don't see the vials of deadly poison that she carries with her.<br>They don't see the ties and bows in her hair as the garrottes that they are.

These exclusive parties among Stormwinds nobility are her hunting grounds, these men - so aroused in the face of innocence - and ladies - so easily envious in the face of natural beauty - are her prey and she, she is the apex predator.

Sabbine is an assassin. And like any good assassin she is an even better actor.

She is the lady in tears as the man at her arm drops dead, poison in his wine.

She is the shadowy figure that a guard could have sworn was a middle aged man of average height.  
>She is the ragged beggar woman, pointing and saying she saw the murderer run 'that way'.<p>

She can be noticable, in a place where everyone will have seen her and be able to attest her presence.  
>She can be invisible and noiseless, killing without even the victim noticing until the last moment.<p>

The people of the Old Town like her.  
>She shares her dinner with the scrappy kids next door whose mum can't affort warm meals.<br>She is never too occupied to stop by a neighbor's doorstep, to chat and compliment his poor efforts at sewing or carving or pottery.  
>She's never too stingy to press a few copper coins into the grubby hands of a homeless man, or - at the very least - hand him some of her lunch.<br>She really doesn't mind.  
>It's not like she works during the day and it's not like some charity for the poor will make a dent in her finances. With all the money she's earned shortening the lifespans of aristocrats with enemies (as well as common people with enemies) she could probably buy real estate in the Mage Quarters.<p>

To her neighbors, she is a nice young lass with a heart to big for her own good.  
>To her targets she is, at times, cool and silky - hard to get, yet daring them to try anyways – at others soft and adoring, listening to their tales of fictional heroism with wide eyes and rapt attention.<p>

To Trade Prince Steamwheedle and his Cartel, she is a business associate, someone you invite to dinner with wealthy clients, to discuss the coming and going of vessels and cargo, offhandely mentioning who is standing in the way of some enterprising new venture.  
>As a professional, she gets the hint.<br>She gets the job done.  
>She gets paid.<p>

They hire her because she is the best at what she does, at this skilled deception that can get her into every house, palace or vault without need for a lockpick.  
>They hire her because she is professional and efficient and the Trade Prince likes people who work fast and who work well.<br>They hire her because she is clean and she's discreet and - say what you want about hired killers - she is trustworthy. She wouldn't bite the hand that feeds her only to be hunted by her colleagues.

So she stalks the endless gatherings of the rich, famous and privileged, knowing that, as long as there is a hirarchy, there will be people who would like to have a little more distance to the lower end of the totem pole.

Sabbine knows what her targets see when they look at her.

They see whatever she wants them to.


	6. Empty Promises to a Missed Future

_**A/N: Helooww. This is one of my shortest drabbles yet, but I kind of had the feeling that it was complete as it was. This (or at least the its basic style) was heavily influenced by 'A Soggy Sandwich''s drabble collection 'Snapshots', mostly chapter 2. So heavily influenced in fact, that one could say I copied the basic principle and inserted my own chars. (I can never do it justice, go read it if you like Borderlands :) )**_

_**Well, I hope that anyone reading this doesn't mind the shortness. I'm working on something slightly longer, but at the moment it seems I have backed myself into a corner with that one. So I'm uploading this instead, because I'm starved for attention :D**_

**_For now, read, review and enjoy :)_**

**Disclaimer: I don't own World of Warcraft, obviously, otherwise I would've made them re-design the dragon models.**

**Empty Promises to a Missed Future**

„I'll be back", she promises the empty air as she sneaks away through the open window. Morning is fast approaching and the frail body of her daughter is breathing calmly under the covers, dreaming of things that Sirana can never hope to know. She can't stay, she tells herself and pretends not to notice the guilty ache in her chest as she flees out into the wild, away from the confines of civilization.

I'll be back, she writes to her daughter days later, a scrap of paper dropped onto her pillow by a befriended bird. She knows that they are searching for her in the forests of Teldrassil and that they would soon ask around in Darkshore if anyone had seen her, but she had taken precautions and called in a favor from a dragon she knew. It had carried her across the water and into the rocky mountains of Stonetalon.

„I'll be back", she says three weeks later, spoken into a mechanical device, bought from a shady dealer for a few gold coins and dropped into an unobserved mailbox. She has found a trace of the orc that had tortured her all those years ago and as she stalks out of the village she stopped in, the nagging in the back of her mind is gone for the first time.

„I'll be back", she tells herself as she takes carefull aim at the orc below her, her serrated arrow notched and the waxed bowstring drawn back. Her people and her daughter have given up their search for her, and she imagines the pain that her little girl must be in, the grief at losing her mother to this aimless quest for revenge. Then she narrows her eyes, let's her arrow fly and imagines no more.

'I'm going back', she thinks months later as another lead disappears, the orc lying dead at her feet not the one that she has set out to kill. Irrelevant. But what's far more interesting is the missive he carried and after she has read it carefully, she has a new destination, a new target. After this, I'll go back, she says and runs off into the night.

Many seasons pass and every lead to the orc who raped her, to Mirelle's father, goes stale. Sirana walks and rides and steals her way across all of Azeroth, unwavering in her hunt for vengeance until a missive from her own mother reaches her, saying that her daughter, her tiny, frail daughter has walked throught the Dark Portal and is fighting on the shattered remnants of Draenor with some guild that she has never heard of.

And the hunter asks herself how long she has been away, when she has last seen her little girl, her beautifull, innocent baby girl and finds that she can't remember.

„I have to find her'", she whispers to the alien stars of Outland as she shoulders her bow and sets out through the red dust of the Hellfire Peninsula.

„I have to find her and make up for the pain that I caused her."


	7. Home of the Howling Wind

_**A/N: I got the idea for this one before going to bed, held onto it very tightly and then spent two hours of English Class scribbling it into my notebook :) Once again, some IsviaxAmara friendship for my dear friend Smileyface. Sure glad I got this written down, because it's been distracting me from Bloons Tower Defense 5 like damn, so now I can finally caaaa- and there's already another idea lining up -.- Oh, well.**_

**Rate, review and such things, I hope you like it.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own World of Warcraft, obviously, otherwise I would've made them re-design the dragon models.  
><strong>

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><p>In a little valley in between the rolling hills of Nagrand, the crumbling ruins of a tiny village decay among the trees. Stones and brickwork lie buried under the clawing brambles and the luscious sweeping grass. Ceramic and glass shards occasionally glint when the sun stands right and in the tree in the former townsquare, a sparrowhawk has decorated its nest with the red and purple stained glass of the temple windows.<p>

The metal skelletons that once were buildings reach towards the sky like hands raised in silent prayer, the rost blooming on the bent pillars and scorched panels looking like dried blood. The formerly clear paths have overgrown, the cobblestones sunk into the ground or sticking upwards like gravestones, dedicated to the people who once lived here.

The burnt ground has long since recovered, new grass swaying gently where it had once been driven away and nature is hard at work retaking the rest of its territory, attempting to remove all traces that a village ever existed here.

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><p>Unblinking, Isvia stares at the sapling that is growing out of the yawning hole that had once been the window to her bedroom. Glowing little seeds shimmer among the leaves and for a moment she wonders what an Olemba Tree is doing in Nagrand. Then she remembers the cone that she once planted behind the house, after a family trip to Terrokar Forest. One of its seeds must have fallen into the house and taken root. The smooth pane of glass (that she had so loved to press her cheek against when it rained) had splintered – or had been smashed in – and the blackened shards still remaining inside the frame grin at her like rotten, black teeth against the vibrant green foliage of the ambitious little tree.<p>

Through the long, slender leaves she can see the remnants of her childhood and if she squints really hard, she can even see her little brother, innocent and joyfull, running around the room and asking her to play with him.

She can almost see the soft candle light and feel the warm contentment of their evenings, spent huddled together under the blankets as their fathers told them stories of all the worlds that their people had been to.

Her gloved hand, moving aside the sapling's canopy, reveals nothing but cracked stone walls, fire-blackened paint peeling off of them in big, dry flakes.

Isvia can remember painting it her favorite color with her mother, can remember going down to the river to gather the red earth needed for it. She remembers mixing it in a big tub, pausing in her work only to draw lines on her baby brother's light blue face with the rusty red paint.

_'Now you look like an orc with war-paint,' _she had said and they had laughed heartily at that.

Back then it had still been funny.

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><p>Here, standing in the silent ruins of her former life and staring into her destroyed home, Isvia feels cold for the first time since her dark rebirth. For the very first time, she can feel the chill of the grave gnawing at her bones and can hear the icy winds of Northrend howling in her soul.<p>

Here, in the warming rays of Nagrand's midday sun, standing motionless among the crumbling masonry and crawling brambles, she can finally understand what she has lost.

She has lost her home, her family and the person that she once was. She knows this, with certainty. She knows, she understands, but she cannot mourn.

Perhaps, that weights heaviest of all.

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><p>She is on her way back to the overgrown path that had once been dug into the hills, where Amara is waiting with their mounts, when her right hoof hits something among the stone chips and ceramic shards and sends it rolling over the dusty ground, clattering all the way.<p>

It has been bleached a stark white by uncounted summers and the fast winds have sanded it completely smooth. For a moment, her glowing blue eyes follow the thing with curiousity, until it stops rolling and she freezes. The thing she kicked is the skull of a draenei and the curled horns, bearing a deep notch in the right one and the tip of the left broken off, look achingly familliar.

A gust of wind blows snowy white hair around her dark face, blank and unbelieving, as the empty eye-sockets of her mother stare back at her.

The overgrown and rotten skelletons scattered throughout the ruins seem to regard her with silent disapproval, their rusted wepons still clutched in boney hands or laying where they had once fallen, their nonexistent eyes devoid of mercy.

Taking off her gloves and stuffing them in the satchel at her hip, she lifts the accidentially kicked skull with infinite care, caressing the fleshless brow and running a finger along the broken horn. At the back of her mind she can remember holding onto it, whenever her mother would carry her as a child.

Giving one finall brush to the skull's cheekbone, Isvia walks to one of the skelletons slumped against a tree and, with a respectfull nod, takes the heavy palisade shield that it had once carried into battle.

Easily carrying it in one hand, the deathknight marches up the hill she used to play on, sets down the skull, hefts the shield as a makeshift shovel and beginns digging with cold determination.

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><p>When Amara comes looking for her two hours later - having been unconcerned for her friend's safety and intent on giving her all the time she needed – the hole among the roots of a twisted tree native to Nagrand is six feet deep and the draenei is covered in dirt from top to bottom. When the elven warrior asks her what's going on (even though she can make an educated guess), Isvia wipes her cheek – smudging it even more – and climbs out of the mass-grave she's been digging.<p>

"Will you help me gather the bones?"

And the nightelf can see the muted pain in those cerulean eyes, the loss weighing in those glowing, dead orbs and knows that is is her way of seeking closure.

"Of course."

* * *

><p>The stars of Outland glitter in the sky when they finish their work, the skull of Isvia's mother the last one to have been added to the carefully piled bones before they buried them under the displaced earth. The shield that had been used to dig the last resting place for an entire village lies atop the mound, cleaned with Amara's cloak and gleaming in the soft light. They had been in lack of flowers or other typical grave ornaments, but the draenei had walked away for a few brief minutes, returning with a Terocone in her hands. Burying it in the still loose earth, she explains that, nutured by the bones of her people, this tree would live and grow, forever marking the spot where they lay buried.<p>

Amara takes Isvia's hand as they look down on their handiwork and the nightelf knows that words from her really aren't needed right now. So she lets her dearest friend mourn in the only way that she can. With silence.

* * *

><p>"Spirits of my neighbors, my friends and my family. I cannot turn back time and save you, nor can I return you to life without the desceration of your bodies, but I can grant you the burial that you deserve, you that you died protecting your home. I hope that you can find peace now and that your spirits can leave this world to walk in the Light. Dance among the stars and sing in the summer winds, protectors of your home. May the Naaru guide your path.<br>Farewell mother."


	8. A Remedy for Rage

_**A/N: This one came up in physics class, while writing down the dacay chain of Pb-211 and my focus was shot to hell after that. So yeah. Yay physics. By now, you should be familiar with Sabbine. Nadira was mentioned in Chapter 1. As usual, this has zero continuity. Read & Review. Have fun.**_

_**If you notice spelling mistakes, please notify me. **_

_**WARNINGS (because I realized it may be apropriate to insert them when I upload new chapters, till now I just kinda forgot): violence, unusual pseudo-abusive relationship, girlxgirl, slight mentions of slavery, slight mentions of forced prostitution, mutual mental issues**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Warcraft (If I did, I'd live in a mansion) but Nadira and Sabbine belong to me alone.**_

**A Remedy for Rage**

It is rare for there to be something gentle in their relationship.

Nadira is restless, always drifting back and forth and never staying in place. Sabbine is greedy and ruthless and possessive, and neither of them is very good at being nice. Nadira, because she is suspicious of kindness, conditioned from childhood to always expect the whips and daggers hidden behind friendly smiles (her father was an expert at smiling to her face before taking a branding iron to her skin) and Sabbine, because the world has never shown her mercy and thus doesn't deserve any in return.

Mostly, they don't see each other for months, Sabbine stalking nobles and businessmen and Nadira escorting traveller after traveller through the desert (she is best at this, noone knows Tanaris quite like her, noone had so many of their clients survive). They are alright like this, quietly seething, the hate and spite and venom boiling just beneath their skin, as they live their lives like relatively normal people. Quietly. Safe.

But they aren't nice people, they are walking volcanoes, and it's only so long before one of them erupts into violence and caos and destruction.

That's usually when they meet up somewhere, be it Gadgetzan or Ratchet or Shattrath (though never Booty Bay, because the humidity and noise and the close proximity to the water make Nadira nervous and twitchy and afraid).

And when they meet, they clash, and when they clash, there is biting and clawing and kicking and screaming. They tear up their surroundings and each other and they do so in blind fury, without holding back the rage that keeps them alive and kills them at the same time. Neither of them knows if it's an attempt at murder or if it's foreplay. Maybe neither. Maybe both. The lines seperating those two extremes have always been rather blurry to them.

Sleeping with Sabbine isn't about tenderness and love and affection. It's all teeth and nails and rough hands grasping at anything they can reach, bruising with a strength that no outside viewer would expect.

It's about letting the beast inside run rampart.

It's about shutting out the voices in their heads that scream _'wicked-evil-wrong-wrong-wrong'_ at them during their waking hours and torture them with nightmares when asleep.

It's a forcefull, unthinking, ravenous liberation from their respective demons and they cling to their sporadic meetings like a lifeline. Because they need this to survive out there, in the normal world.

It's about letting go and cutting loose.

It's stress relief.

Nadira counts the bruises dotting her caramel skin and the scratch marks on her back and smiles, knowing that she can do this. With this reassuring ache in her body, she can go out and face the world, can sleep and talk and _breathe _without fear of whatever this beast inside her is. She can look her clients in the eye and suppress the thought of '_if I jump across the table and tear out his troat with my teeth...'_. She can navigate the narrow streets of Gadgetzan without feeling the need to behead the next person that bumps into her. She can drink water without thinking about drowning.

She _can't_ stop the feeling of anxiety that never leaves her entirely, this feeling of restlessness that wanes and spikes in her chest. This sick feeling that overcomes her if she stays still for too long. She is a traveller, a nomad and it is against her very being to linger, so she fades from people's lives like a fleeting taste upon their tounge. Intangible.

Her life is always changing, but she allows Sabbine to be a fixture in it, takes her mind and makes it revolve around the this beautifull human, who doesn't care that there is a fire burning in her chest and black scales show in places where the illusion - that she has built and added onto her entire life - stretches a bit too thin. Who doesn't care that she is twitchy and has weird ticks and is neurotic as hell.

Who doesn't treat her like glass when she finds out about the pain of her childhood (just one of Nefarian's experiments, a confused child exposed to the sick mindgames of her father) and the agony of her adult life (caged and broken, put on display by the slave-traders - because a dragon-hybrid was as exotic as exotic got - waiting for yet another man to decide that he lusted after her enough to pay the enourmous sum to possess her body).

Who saw the beast sharing her body and, instead of shying away, shattered the chains and set it free and danced with it among the rubble of its prison.

Who was twisted and warped and dark inside and just as starved for contact as herself.

Who doesn't mind when she leaves, but is nontheless glad when she returns.

Sabbine watches Nadira get dressed from where she is sprawled on the bed, and takes in her wiry frame with contentment in her eyes. She's calm again and the voices in her head have shut up for the moment, all exept the one that sounds remarkably like herself and that rambles about how she really digs the way Nadira's black hair is tousled and sticking out into all directions after she got out of bed. That one isn't so bad, because she secretly agrees.

There's a twinge in her back where she pulled a muscle and she can feel the mark on her neck, left behind there after Nadira bit her.

She doesn't mind because she is known for giving as good as she got, and neither of them really care about the pains that come _after. _All either of them really wants is the relief that comes with it.

Some people might call this relationship abusive, but Sabbine would disagree, even when Nadia has her claws wrapped around her throat and holds her up against the wall with one hand, or she herself manages to wrestle the half-dragon to the floor, pulls her head back by her hair and attacks her neck with lips and tounge and teeth. This isn't about hurting the other out of malice or hatred. This is about love, shown in the only way they know.

This is about relishing in the feeling of someone else being so close, when all they ever do is keep people away.

Sabbine knows that most of the voices will be silent for the next few days, before they emerge once again and start picking at everything she does, telling her that she should do better and that she'll never be good enough. Or just shout incomprehensible nonsense for hours on end. She has long since learned to ignore them and does so, to their unending displeasure.

The rage has drained away and she can go and fill her body with it again, all the way to the brim until she can't take it anymore and they repeat this again.

She'll be alright.

There is rarely anything gentle in their relationship, but there is the way Nadira's ruby eyes soften when she looks at her somewhat-friend-somewhat-lover, or the way Sabbine's arms shoot out to grab Nadira, as she passes the bed - already fully dressed and intending to leave - and pull her back onto the mattress, her body curling around her. There is the way Sabbine buries her face between Nadira's shoulderblades and the way they cling to each other like a life-line tells them both how much they need this.

These tender moments are few and far in between, but it's allright.

Together they can pretend to be normal.

Together, it's okay.


	9. Anatomy of a Loss

**AN: Hello and welcome to the 9th chapter of Untold Stories. This is another 'Worst Case Scenario' with Amara and Isvia. Indirectly, this is a sequel to the very first chapter of this series "Words we wished we'd said" And an even further sequel to "Home of the Howling Wind". Weeh!**

**Anatomy of a loss**

Isvia wanders the shattered remnants of her life like she's sleepwalking. Her eyes are open and her legs carry her onwards, but she is blind and deaf and numb to the world.

She had just learned to feel again, look at the world and think that maybe, in time, she could come to enjoy it. Both of them had been so broken that they thought they would die, their life seeping through the cracks and staining their souls as it dripped away. Amara had restlessly searched for some intangible purpose and Isvia had grasped and scrabbled at fading threads of memory, desperate for just a glimpse of what it had been like to be alive.

They'd been broken beyond repair and their meeting saved both their lives, because they'd both been on the verge of collapse.

They'd been broken and they'd used parts of themselves to patch each other, sew shut and stuff the cracks, stem the bleeding and glue pieces together, one day, one lingering gaze and one akward embrace at a time. They weren't whole, but together there were missing at least a little bit less of themselves than if they were alone. It had been enough. Certainly more than either of them had anticipated.

Isvia wanders the shattered remnants of what has become her life and tries to remember what came before. She comes up with nothing but intangible whisps of moments gone by, faded sepia like an old photograph.

They'd danced a delicate dance, the two of them, a slow, at times intimate waltz on the edge of madness. Sometimes, one of them leaned out over the abyss and the other would act as a counterweight. They took each other's fear and filled the leftover space with a thousand moments together, stolen touches and given kisses and the looks shared in the breathless exitement after surviving another impossible battle.

They'd become something greater than themselves, an entity with two bodies, who were so different, yet the same. _Isvia&Amara._ Two sides of the same coin, two names for the same being. They'd been as whole as they's ever be, in this state of merged existence.

She'd taught Amara how to fight, and she had taught Isvia how to feel. The Warrior would trace all the scars on the Death Knight's body like they were beautifull and looked upon the monster that she was with awe and adortaion.

Isvia wanders the shattered remnants of what had once been her life and blinks at the blood on her gauntlet - rubbing off in sticky flakes and stubbornly seeking refuge in the creases of the leather and etchings of the metal – incomprehending as to how it got there. She can't remember who's it is, only that it isn't hers. Her axe weighs heavy in her hand, dripping blood and there's just _so much_ that she's forgotten. She blinks her eyes over and over again and the world goes by in a rapid series of snapshots, different every time she lifts her eyelids and gone the next instant and every image is stained with blood.

Sometimes she snaps awake and regards the mutilated body at her feet with something almost resembling curiosity, wondering how it, how _she_ got here. In these flashes she almost remembers that she has lost something, the feeling in her chest not at all like having her heart cut out, because she did that and this feels worse and she _can't remember_, doesn't know where this pain she shouldn't be able to feel comes from.

„_Amara. Amara. Amara.. Amara.. Amara..."_

A name keeps playing in her head and she knows that it should mean something from the way it makes every dead nerve ending ache, twists like a knife in her chest. So she wanders the world, dead and numb and at the same time alive and in agony, in search of just a glimpse, an idea of why this name makes her feel like it does. Because this name must be important, and she wishes she'd just remember, because maybe then she could finally _sleep_.


End file.
